


Mothers

by unknownlifeform



Series: Tolkien Gen Week [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Family Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tolkien Gen Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform
Summary: The Princes and Princesses of the Line of Finwe follow Feanor to the other side of the sea.They leave their mothers behind.
Series: Tolkien Gen Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818310
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	Mothers

**Author's Note:**

> Finally I get to post this, I had the idea for this fic turning around in my mind for ages, even before deciding I was going to write it for this week.
> 
> Day One: Family

“Is there anything else you need?” Findis asked, handing her a glass of water.

Indis smiled. “No, thank you.”

Findis gave her a small smile back, and left.

Indis took a sip, letting the expression fade from her face. She sat in the little courtyard of her home, one book in her lap that had long been abandoned. The words on the paper did not fully register, no matter how much she read and re-read them.

Her eyes were fixed on the wall in front of her, without truly seeing it. Something akin to a fog had settled in her mind, together with a dull ache in her chest. They had been there since her husband had been taken from her.

Finwë had been stronger than her. He had pulled himself through Míriel’s loss, strong for his people and his son. Indis had never truly understood the kind of pain a broken marriage bond could bring, not in all the years she had spent with her husband. It was like a limb being cut off. She wondered how he had done it, when she would barely even leave the house if it weren’t for Findis.

Her daughter was a good girl. She took care of Indis and of the house without complaining, regularly checking on her mother to see if she wanted anything.

She wanted her family back. She wanted her husband alive and her children all safe with her. She wanted to thank Findis for taking care of her, but even gratitude was hard to muster in the sea of pain.

Her thoughts slipped away from Findis. They were never able of staying on what Indis had left, and always went to what she had lost. Her other daughter, Lalwendë, where was she? Indis had not even been able to say goodbye. She had been with her parents, trying to heal from her grief, when the messengers had brought her news that had torn apart what had still been left of her heart.

Tears still welled in her eyes at the thought. The north! She had never traveled there, but she had heard the tales of places where the ground was eternally frozen and nothing could grow. Her children, why had they decided to take that road?

With a foresight she loathed, Indis knew death would come in the ice for someone of her family, but she did not know for whom. Would it take her son, or her daughter? Or one of her grandchildren, or of her young great-grandchildren?

Ah, hadn’t Nolofinwë predicted it as well? Indis knew the greatest foresight had gone to her last born, but Nolofinwë possessed some of it too. Had he not gone, neither would have his children, or his nephews, or his sister. Why that choice? Was proving himself to Fëanáro truly that important?

Indis’s children were strong, and that was all she could hope in. Stronger than her. She saw it in the way Findis and Arafinwë kept going without falling prey to the grief that choked the air out of her lungs. She could only hope that Nolofinwë and Lalwendë would also be strong and endure the ice to its end.

Not that she had any hopes for what would come after. She had been a child still when her brother had led the Vanyar over the sea, but she remembered well the dangers of those lands. The fearful way adults looked behind themselves at the smallest of noises. Parents never letting their children out of their sight, fearing they may not find them again. Beasts hiding in the dark, watching, waiting.

Indis took her face between her hands, unable to keep herself from crying. Her children might be alive, might even reach across the ice, but she knew! Nothing but ruin awaited her family. Her grief was not only for the losses she had already suffered, but for the ones she knew would come, the ones she would be unable to do anything to prevent.

***

Nerdanel’s mother would be angry with her. So often she had told Nerdanel to not spend her every waking moment in her workshop, ever since Nerdanel had went back to her parents’ house.

Nerdanel disagreed. For starters, she was an adult, she had raised seven children herself, there was no need to treat her like she didn’t know what was better for her. And second, she _needed_ to work. She could not sit around with idle hands and a wandering mind. She had to chip away at her thoughts as if they were stone.

Her arms ached in a way they hadn’t in years. As a girl, it used to be a sign she had worked too long and needed a break. Centuries of sculpting and carrying heavy statues around had made her arms strong, and she rarely felt this kind of tiredness while working these days.

That she felt it now didn’t matter. Nerdanel could not rest. She would go until she had worked on every stone block in this house if she had to, and her father had many. She would work until her mind stopped. And if making statue after statue was not enough, then she would go and help Mahtan with his work, carry his tools in the way she used to when she was just a little girl.

However, if her father wished to go see Aul ë, she would not accompany him. The Valar may not be iron fisted tyrants as  _someone_ used to say, but they were not without blame or fault either.

She swung her hammer with much more force than she should. Rock chips flew off into the air, and some unlucky ones painfully hit the bare skin of her arms. It was not a good way to work, but she was not stopping. She had eyes protections, she did not care about making a mess.

The statue was starting to take shape. She brushed some of the dust off of it. It was rough work still, but one could easily recognize the beginning of a face. The proportions were right, even if the details still missed. She traced the edges with her fingers. She could imagine how she would shape the arch of the eyebrows and the curve of the nose-

Nerdanel’s stomach lurched. She had not been working with a specific person in mind, but she saw now her hands had moved on their own to recreate a familiar face. She had the perfect base for Maitimo’s looks.

She had to put her tools down. Her knees were weak, and she had to lean against the table to steady herself. She shut her eyes, unable of looking at her work.

What kind of mother feels sick thinking of her son’s face?

A mother who does not know how to stop her children from leaving on what was without doubts a death trip.

She should not have left them, in her anger towards Fëanáro. There was no changing her husband’s mind once it had been made, but her sons were more reasonable. For the most part. If she had been there, if she had tried to talk some sense into them-

It was pointless now to think about it. The fact was that they were gone, and she was not. No use in thinking about how she might have convinced them to stay. Nor in wishing she had gone with them, if only to know for sure what was of them, and not just wonder and dream.

People told her she had made the right choice in staying. Some pitied her, for what her husband had done, for the loss of her sons.

She hated that pity. It did not matter how right or wrong her choice had been. The fact was that Nerdanel had let her sons leave on a dangerous and most likely mortal journey, and she had not followed. Her family had abandoned her, but she had abandoned them as well.

And now her guilt and fear and anger were so strong she could not bear looking at the image of her own sons, the greatest masterpieces she had ever made.

She threw a cloth of the statue. She would not be able to finish it, but neither would she ever be able of destroying anything that even vaguely resembled Maitimo.

***

Anairë fluffed up the couch’s cushions with her hands. Straightening up, she admired her work. The couch had been in the middle of the room before, but now it was closer to a wall. She felt it was a better position. She had a whole idea on how she wanted to redecorate this room and make anyone who saw it think it was just lovely.

Anyone. _Herself_. No one came to visit her as of late, except sometimes her parents. Even the servants had been cut. A single woman in a house did not dirty much. 

She sighed. She would make herself happy then.

The room already looked quite different. It used to be a place where her and her family would receive guests and friends. Now… Anairë could still receive guests on her own, still. It was true many of her friends were not… there, anymore, but she could make some new ones.

With a huff, she grabbed one of the heavy carpets she had rolled up, moving it to the center of the room. It had been about time she did a little renovations. Move things around. Give the house a new look.

Or at least, a different look than the one it used to have. Even if only Anairë was in there, she still kept expecting to see her family moving around it. Perhaps if she changed the way the place looked, her mind would stop trying to tell her that perhaps it had all been just a bad dream, that everyone was just in the next room.

She knelt on the carpet she had unrolled, panting. She knew they were heavy, but she didn’t think she had really realized how much. Or she was simply unused to manual work, let alone moving around all the furniture in one room on her own. She’d have to take a moment to rest before finishing.

She considered what still needed to be done. The little table she would put on top of this carpet, and then she would arrange the chairs. There was another couch she had to move, heavier than the other one, and a library in the corner. She hadn’t even touched that one yet. She would need to take out all the books, and even then, it was hardwood. Anairë doubted she could move it on her own.

She grabbed some books out of it, just to see what they were about. A small encyclopedia of flowers, full of pretty illustrations. A love tale that belonged to her, between a Vanya girl and a Teler boy. Light books, the kind one kept around guests. They were full of dust, she would have to fix that.

The next book she took was a poetry collection. Opening it, she found the margins were full of small annotations.

Findekáno. He had always had the bad habit of writing things down on books. The handwriting was most definitely his. Small comments on the poet’s style, a note about a metaphor he had liked.

Anairë’s throat tightened. She could just picture him, her Finno, sitting down on the couch and marking what he had liked, while Irissë and Arakáno called for him to go on a ride with them and Findekáno shouted that he would be there soon. He’d put the book back and rush out, and Arakáno would laugh at how many braids his brother had in his hair, and Turukáno would make fun of Findekáno for always being late.

There were tears building in Anaire’s eyes. So much silence in her house. It was a tangible presence by now, pressing down against her ears. No matter how much she forced herself to cheer up and think optimistically about the future, she could not fight off all those empty rooms.

She closed the book harshly, with a sound not unlike a slap to the face.

She was still dressed in house clothes and with her hair in a simple ponytail, but she rushed out of her house. The streets of Tirion were emptier than they used to be, but still people passed by. They would look at her with pity, the lady who had been left behind by her whole family, but Anairë did not care.

People meant voices, noise, movements. Better to endure the looks than the silence.

***

Olwë appeared as serious and composed as always, but Eärwen could see the little frown that meant her father was starting to grow weary of this meeting. Eärwen had to agree. She had an almost constant headache these days, from trying to listen to everyone’s arguments and demands and the endless councils she had to be present at. She had always hated politics with a passion.

Not that she had much choice now. Teleri and Noldor were in dire need of someone that could mitigate the tension between them, and who better than her? Arafinwë tried to not have Tirion fall apart, and Eärwen tried to fix the crumbling diplomatic relationships with the Teleri in Alqualondë.

“-we are in need of more wood,” one of her father’s counselors was saying. “But we are also running out of trees to cut.”

The ships again. The livelihood of the Teleri depended so much on them that their theft had thrown Alqualondë into as much chaos as the deaths and injuries to the population. All that had been left were small fishing boats, not nearly enough.

Eärwen cleared her throat. “I do not know if the kind of trees you need can be find near Tirion’s forests, but I may send word to look for them there and have the wood be sent here.”

Olwë nodded. “Thank you.”

He looked tired. His pinched expression was so shockingly similar to the face Angaráto always used to make when he was tired of something. Eärwen’s two middle children had been the onea to take the most from her side. It was so easy to see a shadow of them in Olwë’s face.

Another counselor scoffed. “How generous of King Arafinwë.”

Eärwen turned to him. “I believe offering aid in rebuilding the ships is an acceptable way for him to help make reparations. If there is more you wish from my husband, please, speak.”

“None of his offerings will bring my son back from Mandos faster.”

Eärwen’s jaw clenched. “I do not believe anyone has that kind of power.”

The counselor glared at her. She understood his pain and his anger, but she did not appreciate that look. As if saying she could not possibly know what he was going through. As if she had not lost all of her children as well. Not dead, but there was a yet to be added. She dared not ask Arafinwë to explain her what caused the pain in his eyes, what his foresight showed him.

Four children she had, and four children she had lost. She knew exactly what pain the people of Alqualondë felt. Not a day, not an hour passed without her heart going out to her family.

But there was no point for her to try and argue now. Even if Eärwen’s children had not taken part in the kinslaying, they were still Noldor. No one in this city would cry for the loss of a Noldo, not when so many had lost their own family to the madness of Eärwen’s brother-in-law. Some barely even considered Eärwen herself a Teler, a traitor whose crime was to try to mend things between the two people.

It didn’t matter how much she wished to scream that her heart was also being torn to shreds, or that her children had not committed the crimes people blamed them of. She was here for diplomatic reasons, and diplomatic she would be. She had been raised a Princess and she was now effectively a Queen, and she would act like it, and make sure her feelings did not interfere with her work.

Under the table, she clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned white, and willed them to stop shaking.


End file.
